New Music Gear Monday: Sony C-80 Condenser Microphone

For many music genres, Sony’s C-800G is the Holy Grail of vocal microphones, but at a retail price of more the $10k for a new one, it’s way out of reach for most home studios. The company is aware of the limitations that price can have and has responded with a much lower cost version called the C-80.

According to Sony, the C-80 is uni-directional condenser microphone that uses the same capsule as its C-100 and the same material for the diaphragm as the C-800G to retain much of the same sound of those mics. The mic has a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz, and Sony says that its rich lower midrange makes it ideal for vocals and voice recordings.

Taking the vocal focus a little further, a dual diaphragm configuration is used to suppress proximity effect, and the “Noise Elimination Construction” is used from the C-800G/C-100 to help prevent acoustic vibration.

The mic has a low-Cut filter switch (no word on the frequency though), and a 10dB pad switch for loud sound sources. It also comes with a shock mount and carrying case.

There’s not much else to say about the C-80 since it’s not available until November (although that’s right around the corner), and Sony doesn’t have a lot of information about it on its site. There is a few nice YouTube videos featuring demos of the mic and it does sound pretty good, especially for voice-over.

That being said, you have to match the microphone to the sound source, so what works well in one situation may not work well in another.

That said, the big news is that it will sell for only $499. While you can’t expect it to sound like a C-800 for that price, if it even gets in the ballpark it’s a good deal.

Find out more about the Sony C-80 here, or watch the video below.

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